Fashion designer Naoki Takizawa was born on July 19, 1960, in Tokyo. He graduated from the Dress Design Department of Kuwasawa Design School in 1981 and joined Miyake Design Office the following year. In 1983, he was responsible for the design of Plantation, a brand under the ISSEY MIYAKE umbrella. He became the designer of ISSEY MIYAKE Men in 1993 and ISSEY MIYAKE in 1999. He has collaborated with a wide range of creators, including artist Takashi Murakami for the SS00 advertisements and a window display collaboration with creative director Kashiwa Sato in 2005. He has also worked on a wide range of projects, including costume design for the Frankfurt Ballet's "Eidos Telos" (1995), uniforms for the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2004), and curtains for the Musée National du Quai Branly in Paris (2006). In 2006, he founded Naoki Takizawa Design and became its CEO and creative director. He retired as creative director of Issey Miyake after the 2007 Spring/Summer collection. In September of the same year, he presented his "Naoki Takizawa" collection in New York. In 2007, he collaborated with artist Yoshitomo Nara to create the dress "Moon Over the Mountain." In 2008, he participated in the brand renewal of Sanyo Shokai's men's brand, SANYO, and was responsible for the design of the collection line and supervising the second line. He also served as creative director of the Helmut Lang men's line from the 2010-11 Autumn/Winter collection. In 2011, he became a part-time lecturer at Waseda University's School of Culture, Media and Society. In the same year, he also became the design director of UNIQLO, and supervised all UNIQLO items from the 2013-14 Autumn/Winter season. He launched a new concept called "LifeWear."

He has also been serving as director of Yanmar since March 2013. His "super cool agricultural wear" is now on sale at Isetan, attracting attention.